This is Dark Blue Reporting - Propoganda for the Deluded.
Of the 3 services, it is the RN that has clearly won this fight - how on earth can you think otherwise? They lose a couple of boats, but are promised design budgets for new ships, and get to keep their carriers - which will in turn take jets away from the RAF.
Even the Tonka guys will be pretty surprised to have survived this.
MRA4 is the biggest shock. Yes, it is expensive, but clearly very few people really understand what the roles this aircraft has. The ASW part is the headline, which is such a shame - it makes it easy to knock in a post-cold war world. It also provides long-range search and rescue cover, fisheries protection, drugs patrols, constant maritime intelligence gathering... and guards the one, narrow lane into the home base of the nuclear deterrent.
Little reported yesterday is that some of the latest technology, genuinely newest aircraft are to be scrapped at the end of Afghanistan: Sentinal (in service for less than 2 years so far), as well as some of the UAVs.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
